How satisfied are you with the way this site is moderated

[vdhillon]

THIS POLL IS NOT FOR MODS. MODS & office bearers of this site, please do not vote.

Despite its claim to 15,000~ registered members, it seems that compared to other similar community-based forums and networking sites, the proportionate number of active users (1. who make regular posts, and 2. 'regular repeat visitors') is low.

This got me thinking, how do 'inherently republican jats' respond to various styles and types of moderation? Could one of the factor be, the experience of users with with the (un)satisfactory style and (in)consistency of moderation on this site.


Based on the outcome of this poll, I may post more follow-up polls, assuming i stay on the site. Though, the response to this poll is unlikely to be representative sample as inactive users, occasional users, users already put off and dormant users may not respond. Regardless, it will be interesting to see and understand few things from the data because if utilized in proper context with constructive attitude, such exercise could be useful for enhancements of the site.

So this is your contribution - your feedback. Please take the poll and you are all welcome to drop some notes regarding your experience, satisfaction level, etc. Your comments can be very wide-ranging i.e. you are welcome to take a very liberal, broad and open-ended interpretation of my request for your reaction and views. I kept it open-ended so that one can not be easily moderated out on the basis of 'your comment is not relevant'.

Over to you guys. Bring it on.

Raam Raam.


Dr V Dhillon
PhD, MBA, MTech, BE
Regional IT Director for Asia with a Global US MNE,

PS: I have voted BAD despite leaning towards VERY BAD to the extent I am contemplating permanently quitting the site. This is mainly due to inconsistent, autocratic, irrational and incompetent moderation I have experienced over limited span of last 2 or 3 days where bulk of my 10 or so posts were incompetently butchered.

I laud the hard work put in by administrators, volunteers, fellow members and some Mods. I support the objective behind this site
- to document and preserve jat heritage,
- bring jats together,
- discuss/learn from each other,
- influence future course of jat tribe,
- basically an online Sarv Jat Khap.

However, there is a need for discussion to ascertain if the powers-that-be can engage us jats in fruitful and constructive manner. I intend to create follow-up posts and polls to
- seeking feedback from users,
- culminating in SWOT-type analysis with contribution from community
- recommendations for closed-loop feedback, monitoring and corrective system to enhance the site.
- immediate corrective steps to resolve the issue of this online Sarv-Khap hijacked and being slowly killed by some (not all) incompetent moderation. It takes one bad apple (i.e. bad modda) to undo the hard work and ruin it for all stakeholders.
- Fine-tuning moderation style (moderation framework, MODs recruitment criteria based on skills rather than other factors including number of posts or duration of stay on the site, rotational policy for MODs to encourage freshness and skill development in the community, etc)


This entails open and candid discussion, having sufficient leadership courage to take negative feedback with positive, corrective and reformative steps.

Later, in subsequent posts and polls, I intend to steer the discussions around
- strategic, actionable, measurable and tangible future direction site can take
- while being accessible to more users,
- enhance repeat visitors,
- differentiate itself from other competing sites (or die a slow death),
- ways to recruit more members,
- enhance use experience,
- build content to attract repeat visitorship,
- even funding/sponsorships & monetization to support expansion of this community site, etc.

I am an ordinary member here and not linked with the site in any other capacity. This is my way of giving back to this community site, which I have benefited from but have been badly disappointed with - remember only 1 in 10 users provide feedback about bad service/experience, rest simply walk away for ever.

My decision and ability to stay on or not and be able to contribute partly depends on the reaction of the hitlers of this site. Looking forward to engaging with fellow jats. Thanks for your time folks.

[akshaymalik84]

I hope purpose of making Jatland was or is different from other networking sites. Culture and modesty is on high priority here.

[singhvp]

First of all, let me register my appreciation for the commendable job being done by the Administrators of this site, especially Satyeshwar. I would also like to be on record in extending my heartfelt gratitude to the administrators, moderators and also to the fellow members for giving me an ample opportunity to learn and polish my writing skill and also for tolerating lot of junk material written by me on this site. Having said that, I would like to add that there is a scope for betterment of moderation on every site and our site is not an exception. Even though the Administrators have been doing a yeoman’s service for community and quite recently have appointed two young, brilliant and dynamic moderators, there is still room for improvement.

We need to do a little retrospection and analyze, as to how many of our brilliant and dynamic members have either left or gone into hibernation. We need to give a serious thought as to why only a little percentage of more than 15,000 registered members are actively participating in discussions. I do not think there is a dearth of literate, sophisticated, progressive and wise people in the Jat community. Our boys and girls have excelled in almost every field of life, be it IT, Management, Economics, Engineering, Academics or any other profession in India and abroad. They can add value to this site, if given proper opportunity. Why they are not tempted to join this site, is a question which needs to be investigated seriously. I remember, the other day when I mentioned about JL to one of my friend (a lecturer of Economics in some Govt. college). He laughed at me and satirically said, “I do not understand the concept of your being on Jatland”. That did not discourage me but it was a frustration and disillusionment of a bright academic which was borne out of some adverse publicity of this site due to the rudeness and impolite behavior of some ignorant members who need to be suitably counseled my the moderators not to do anything which might corrode the image of entire Jat community.

In my assessment, our moderation has not been upto the desired level and that is the main reason for little or non-participation of crème de la crème of our community. At times some of the moderators have been found to be having a clear bias in their moderation when it comes to certain issues on which their own opinion was contrary to the views of members moderated upon – a case in point is role of the Khaps on different issues. Based on my individual experience, I can emphatically say that whenever, I ventured to write freely, fearlessly and candidly on certain issues related to khaps, I was either shelled by some fellow members with their hostile and overly sarcastic remarks or the post itself was deleted. Moderators did not play a positive role at such junctures which further vitiated the atmosphere. On some particular topic, I was once flabbergasted when I got an infraction from one of our learned moderator without any serious fault of mine. I am again thankful to Administration for having a pragmatic and lenient view on that. Ironically, the warnings/notifications to delete the posts/infraction are issued to those members who are already at the receiving end. At times, people who write provocative remarks and indulge in personal attacks go scot free for reasons unknown to me.

I have personally experienced bullying and heckling on this site when I initially ventured to jump into the rugged and tumble terrain of Jatland. I had pointed this out earlier also but the post was unfortunately butchered by one of the moderators. Anyway, let bygones be bygones. Let us forget the past acrimony and move forward with new relations of friendship and brotherhood.


It is a good thread started by Bhai Vishal Deep Dhillon and we all must endeavour to make this rich web-site richer and richer. I am sure the able Administrators of this site are working tirelessly in this direction and need our whole hearted support which we must offer. Future belongs to the fleet of our young and dynamic youth who need to understand their liability more seriously and must extend their full support to moderators and also to the greying people like me.

[VirJ]

Mr V. Dhillon,

May I know where and which one of your 10 posts were deleted or butchered? We keep a record of everything and I can't see where and which one are these. At least be honest in your assessment, if you want to add something constructive.

[vdhillon]

Mr V. Dhillon,

May I know where and which one of your 10 posts were deleted or butchered? We keep a record of everything and I can't see where and which one are these. At least be honest in your assessment, if you want to add something constructive.

I have posted 10+ posts, 3 deleted and 3 altered significantly by MODS between 20-23 Nov.

Are you alleging dishonest on my part? On what basis? What would be my motive? I, as an ordinary user, can not see the data that you can see as a MOD. Secondly, I do not know if the system keeps a log of all versions of before-and-after posts deleted or altered by MODS with time stamps, user id of mods, user id of posters. Without these, I have no way to point you to that data to conduct any forensic analysis. If you have this info please share, if not then you must retract your allegation.

I do apologize if my request to fellow members to share their experience has resulted in exposing incompetent moderation skills (It is not impled that all MODS are incompetent, but there certainly are problems).

I further apologize, if it has rattled the fief of some egoistical people who are unable to take constructive feedback, thus resorting to personal attack on me with allegation of dishonest conduct.

Well done for passing a verdict with out Q&A or opportunity to clarify with the OP, for trying to silence any negative feedback instead of encouraging it as an opportunity to glean more information to constructively enhance the site, skills & practices of moderators. This just reinforces my point. Case rested.

[VirJ]

Let me try to answer.

Your 2 posts got deleted. One was in "walking with comrades". it was deleted by an accident by one of my colleague. Unfortunately its gone now and cannot be restored. I do apologize for this. I was in fact about to write a PM to you about this but got busy somewhere else and couldn't write. Your another post(in fact it was a thread) where u were making fun of MODs got deleted. I see no reason why it shouldn't be deleted.

Your one post was edited by me. In a thread related to Jat villages, you were talking about your past and future share with respect to the site and other plans. You were also commenting about the owner of the site and status of moderation, I removed the irrelevant portion. There was no other modification made to your post. You were provided a reason on both occasions. At least from 10, now you are claiming 6 of your posts were altered.

If you want further details on this you need to write through contact us. I can not explain everything here.

[vdhillon]

If an accidentally deleted post can not be restored that means system does not keep a log - this refutes your earlier claim of keeping track of every thing. You mentioned the fate of few posts that were butchered, but not all have been explained. besides, I never received any notification that a post has been "accidentally" deleted.

Re: posts about making fun of the MODS. That was a JOKE-post made in Humor section with a note that it is all in jest, inline with Jat's ability to laugh at themselves, there were no derogatory words or attack on any person. It was a joke. I disagree with highhandedness and feel sorry for the lack of sense of humor. I encourage MODS to reinstate that post WITH A POLL, where users of the site can decide if they found the post derogatory, or in bad taste or they found it harmless hilariously funny.

Also, why was I not consulted via a PM and given a chance to clarify, modify, etc (same applies to other victims) before their posts are butchered in autocratic manner. Thus, preempting the possibility of dissatisfied users and loosing them for ever or discouraging them form posting altogether. Whatever happen to freedom of expression (with obligation towards others, of course), sense of humor, sensible moderation.
May be other like me who have been treated in the similar bad manner. The are all gone, those who will never comment on this poll, otherwise actual negative results on the poll would have been many fold more.

The whole point of discussing this specific incidence is to state that resolving few cases related to me may not resolve the problem for all. I am using these micro-symptoms to identify bigger macro issues plaguing scores of users, undermining user satisfaction, overall effectiveness of the site and long term sustainability of the site.

[VirJ]

I mean that post accidentally got removed from system and cannot be restored as original . You may wish to browse archive where most of your question are already answered and please go through member's agreement as well.

[vdhillon]

You made some vague comments without addressing my specifics. I am quite interested in seeing what the community thinks of my joke about mods, bring it on with a poll.

You have succeeded in baby-sitting me and other users but failed in engaging us constructively. When you can not convince them with rational logic, then slam them with member's agreement that its is owner's prerogative to do whatever they wish to chose with this site. This will only expose the 'pretension' of a personally-owned and autocratically-run site disguised as so-called community site.

Well, members can always choose to walk off from autocratic regime specially when there are better alternatives around e.g.
- wikipedia (easily accessible including on mobile, wider user base, higher repeat users, easier to build jat knowledge base there, higher chances of future survival of that site due to being global in appeal and better funding seeking model, no autocracy only meritocracy in content required to be referenceable, etc), and

- better moderated and more liberal sites catering for various needs and tastes (e.g. facebook).

Only differentiator this site had was that it was exclusive to jats and 2ndly it brought all the things under one roof but that Differentiated value-add to the users has now proved to be several times outweighed by several cons (incompetent moderation, due to skills of some, but not all moderators, is just one of the reason), also people would prefer to contribute to a true-community site as opposed to a private-site that can switch tracks based on the whims and fancies.

I also wish to thank for providing me with the opportunity to learn few lessons in 'how not to moderate', 'how to turn away the site traffic', etc.

[ravinderjeet]

You made some vague comments without addressing my specifics. I am quite interested in seeing what the community thinks of my joke about mods, bring it on with a poll.

When you can not convince them with rational logic, then slam them with member's agreement that its is owner's prerogative to do whatever they wish to chose with this site. This will only expose the 'pretension' of a personally-owned and autocratically-run site disguised as so-called community site. Well, members can always choose to walk off from autocratic regime.

chho me naa aawo bhaai maamlaa suljhaa lo.beth batlaa ke.

[vdhillon]

lol Bhai Ravinder Jeet .... your comment will be moderated/deleted with a note, 'comment not relevant to the poll', because someone may not like how you trim your moustache <wink>

Can you believe, one of my comment was butchered to remove the part where all I innocently said was 'make Ravinder a mod at least for humor section due to his humerus skills and outstanding contribution (gr8 content, brings repeat users, ur thread inspires and encourages others to post/contribute) in this area on this site'. I implied: skill-based moderators, not based on nepotism

[ravinderjeet]

lol Bhai Ravinder Jeet .... your comment will be moderated/deleted with a note, 'comment not relevant to the poll', because someone may not like how you trim your moustache <wink>

Can you believe, one of my comment was butchered to remove the part where all I innocently said was 'make Ravinder a mod at least for humor section due to his humerus skills and outstanding contribution (gr8 content, brings repeat users, ur thread inspires and encourages others to post/contribute) in this area on this site'. I implied: skill-based moderators, not based on nepotism

i creat my own space ,where ever i go, i also got deleted several time ,without specifing any reason.but i never complained ,becouse it is depend upon the peronlity of modretor who is hendling that section.some time it happend that a nonhumorius person become mod. for humor section.he/she will start deleting the post according to her/his like/dislike,but other mod mey be enjoying that ,so keep wiriting and let them delet,they are doing theire job,you do your,keep posting.

[vdhillon]

May be that effort in posting better spent elsewhere on better sites

Why put up with nonsense, I am a huge fan of "lack-of-skill but willingness to learn", but I have low tolerance for "incompetence and arrogance prohibiting improvement".

May be best way is to use it opportunistically but do not waste time on a lost cause/site that is unwilling to listen to its audience and enhance itself based on stakeholders feedback. In corp world, there is performance review, probation period, skills enhancement for staff, firing of non-performers, leadership development.

[vicky84]

May be that effort in posting better spent elsewhere on better sites

Why put up with nonsense, I am a huge fan of "lack-of-skill but willingness to learn", but I have low tolerance for "incompetence and arrogance prohibiting improvement".

May be best way is to use it opportunistically but do not waste time on a lost cause/site that is unwilling to listen to its audience and enhance itself based on stakeholders feedback. In corp world, there is performance review, probation period, skills enhancement for staff, firing of non-performers, leadership development.

You have raised very valid points in above posts.. I agree with most of them..I hope it helps to understand the stakeholder of this website that there is a liberalization or some moderation is required in one way or the other to deal with these issues. I see so many times, Shri Ravi Chaudhary ji writing that there are 15K+ members on this website. Please contribute. But I am not sure how many of them are really active. How many do not visit this website again after becoming a member of it. What is the cause behind it? It needs a careful analysis to understand these issues and address most of them.

[vicky84]

Related to this thread and understanding about the active participation of members, I am quoting one of the post of lburdak ji

The main point of the quoted post:

We need to increase Active users (Users who have performed an action in the last 7 days) - The number right now is only 6

More about Statistics on JL Wiki

Jatland Forums page right now shows :

Currently Active Users

There are currently 55 users online. 4 members and 51 guests

It means more than 10 times viewers are not members but guests. This shows that other people take interest in Jatland.

If you go on left panel of Jatland, click special pages. Then go to Statistics page. It is here:

http://www.jatland.com/home/Special:Statistics

Page statistics

Content pages 10,791

Pages (All pages in the wiki, including talk pages, redirects, etc.) 19,717

Uploaded files 1,775

Edit statistics

Page edits since Jatland Wiki was set up 93,067

Average edits per page 4.72

User statistics

Registered users 1,202

Active users (Users who have performed an action in the last 7 days) 6

View statistics

Views total 6,147,315

Views per edit 66.05

Most viewed pages

Main Page 564,710

Matrimonials 327,354

Gotras 142,091

People 74,628

History 52,585

Jats 50,826

Category:Jat Gotras 43,670

Category:Famous Jat People 35,703

Haryanavi Language 34,152

Rajasthani Language 26,926

Note - 1. Views total 6,147,315 - It is very good

Note - 2. We need to increase Active users (Users who have performed an action in the last 7 days) - The number right now is only 6

[vdhillon]

Thanks for the comment bhai Atish, I equally share your concerns and observations. Many members and volunteers have put in immense amount of time and effort in building content, etc. It will be a shame if it goes to waste or if true potential of this site is not utilized by harnessing combined effort of 16K talented jats, all because of averseness to change, lack of periodical self-review, long-term planning & strategic direction, etc.

[singhvp]

You have raised very valid points in above posts.. I agree with most of them..I hope it helps to understand the stakeholder of this website that there is a liberalization or some moderation is required in one way or the other to deal with these issues. I see so many times, Shri Ravi Chaudhary ji writing that there are 15K+ members on this website. Please contribute. But I am not sure how many of them are really active. How many do not visit this website again after becoming a member of it. What is the cause behind it? It needs a careful analysis to understand these issues and address most of them.

Even though, I have taken a middle path as far as voting is concerned, I fully endorse the opinion expressed by Shri Atish Mohan and Shri V Dhillon. We must raise the standards of moderation to make this site attractive for more and more well meaning, civilized, educated, and cultured people who could add value to it. But, it is my guess that Administrators must be facing a difficulty in finding better moderators who could be willingly prepared to do this tedious task. You all know, moderation is not an easy job. It is very easy for us to pass comments, but when it comes to moderation, it is really difficult, I presume. So I request both - the moderators as well as members to mend fences and work unitedly. The dissenting voice of worthy members should be taken in all positivity and their posts should be given due space.

[singhvp]

I hope purpose of making Jatland was or is different from other networking sites. Culture and modesty is on high priority here.

More often than not, culture and modesty has to take a back seat.

[satyenderdeswal]

Bhai...
Main te nue kahunga ki her ek baat ko dekhne ke do najariye hai..
wo angreji main cos and pros bolya karey shayad...
moderators koi super computer to hai nahi, apney jaise bhai e hai...
agar main mod banun ya vipin bhai baney te koi aur bhai bhi hamari like and dislike pe comment kar skae hai...ki "kyun edit ki post".."nue kyun karya" ......this is a subjective thing..
and galtiyan to insaan se hoti hi hain as moderators are also human beings (as much as i know to my best memory) to ekadh galti te wey bhi kar sakey hai..
manney te is post main nue lagya ki site pe e shak ho rahay hai kai balkan ne..
jo ki achha nahi hai..
kise bhai ne koi cheese achhi na lage te satyeshwar bhai ke PM main jake ya ghaney e mod hai, unke PM main jake discuss karey..
koi bahar ka bhai (Guest) is thread ne padhega te ke sochega...
yo thread band kar dena chahiye koise shayaney se mod ne.....

[ravinderjeet]

ek be ek mod. ney meraa ek chutkalaa delet kar diyaa ,usse din manney chopaal mey bujhi ak ku delet kyun karyaa ,to uhney kahi ak oohmey tanney choth (gobar) shabad likhaa thaa,jayaan tein delet kardiyaa.kai chutkale binaakisse ke koment karein aagley 2-3 din me fer delet kardiye ,yo kaaran de kein ak aachhey koni they.ibb haam mod ki pasand jaan kein thodi naa chutkale likhaangey.ibb manney choth ki thaan ke likhanaa chaahiye thaa ? "green grass eaten by buffalo from front side and come out from back side in the form of pest".to mere khayaal me yo shabad aachhaa lagdaa.